


Nightmares

by cosmobears



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 10:05:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14590656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmobears/pseuds/cosmobears
Summary: You would think half a decade would lessen the nightmares, but they creep up on you sometimes. Fortunately Arik has a sweet little Miqo'te to help calm him down.And no one ever said a Dotharl's spirit couldn't be reborn inside of his lovers heart.Written purely for the violence.





	Nightmares

Arik closed his eyes, the familiar weight of Gata'a on his chest provided some comfort, though he still focused too much on the sounds around them, Soot Creek's burbling, the orobons making their strange noises and moving around in the shallow water, the rocks overhead settling and bending to the small waterfalls, it all seemed far too loud.

Fortunately for him, being awake for over a full day meant sleep quickly claimed him, and the next time he opened his eyes, he found himself in the tiny wooden shack from his nightmares. "Just tell us where the rest of your Imperial friends are hiding." Said a thick hyuran woman, her blade at Temuyin's armored throat. Arik choked, staring at the Dotharl as his eyes narrowed, like burning coals, to glare at the woman. "And we *might* let one of you live..." She added, and a dagger came up to Arik's comparatively unarmored throat.

"How many times do I repeat myself?" Temuyin growled, his broken Eorzean had not yet improved, and they had been within La Noscean borders for many moons now, "We spit on the Empire. And I spit on *you.*" He snarled back, and sucked his teeth to collect his saliva, the gathered ball of it landing square on the womans cheek. She brought her blade up, and slammed the pommel of it into one of Temuyin's horns.

Arik swore he heard it crack, but the Dotharl hardly reacted, laughter bubbling out of his throat. "Kill him." The woman ordered, gesturing at Arik. The Sagahl struggled against his binds.

"Touch him and I destroy you." Temuyin said, and the glower on his face seeped into his words, which was enough for the man holding the knife at Arik's throat to hesitate. "You learn nothing from me of these Imperials you wish to kill if you kill him." He added.

Arik continued to struggle, but their ropes were thicker than the ones on the steppe, and they had used a thick length of chain to bind his mate. Temuyin still towered over them even while seated and bound. "L-look." Arik started, his voice trembling, tears streaming down his face, "W-we aren't Imperial spies, we're from the Azim Steppe, in Othard." The woman watched him, but she didn't seem impressed by his diction, "We've never even seen an Imperial, l-let alone--"

"Shut up. You're a terrible liar." The woman wiped the spit from her face, and used the hand to slap Arik, making him wince. "We know you're Imperials, we've been watching you since you arrived-- you can't hide yourselves in a city with so few *skinks* around." She hissed, and stepped over to the Sagahl, grabbing him by his throat, forcing him to look at her. "We know that boat came from *Doma*, and we know that Doma is under the Empire's thumb."

"W-we fled Doma! We are refugees in your lands!" Arik pleaded, but as he leaned forward, he felt the knife below her hand start to cut into his scaled flesh, "It w-was the Maelstrom who brought us here, w-we stopped in V-Vesper Bay, and th-they offered to bring us to Limsa, so we ag-agreed!"

"Cease this lying, boy, or I will slit your throat myself! At least your friend here could prove useful, given his *prowess* in combat." Temuyin shifted across from them, the chains rattling, Arik couldn't tell if he was planning to try and break them with sheer strength, but he hoped that Temuyin would. "But you..." She started again, her grip on his neck tightening. Arik was glad for all of the times Temuyin had choked him, she was not half as strong as he was, unable to even cut off his airflow at all. "You... blithering, worthless, useless little skink, all you've done is cry and beg us to let you go, that we have it all wrong... I don't know why your friend here *bothers* to stick around you."

Temuyin grunted, but the woman refused to turn her attention back to the Dotharl, a critical mistake on her part, as well as Temuyin's part. Everyone inside of the shack was focused on the verbal abuse of the Sagahl, and all but one noticed as the Dotharl flexed, and the weak point of the chain he was bound with gave way, unable to hold back an eight-foot-tall Au Ra with the rage of a dragon. The crack of the chain breaking alerted the rest of the gathered pirates, but one of the Roegadyn's in attendance was already hefting his axe.

The woman ducked as Temuyin lunged, but the axe arced into him, and his body fell to the floor, headless, and lifeless. Temuyin's head dropped shortly after, his eyes focused on Arik as it did, but there was no light in them, dead, unseeing red eyes watched the Sagahl as the head fell to the floor, and Arik felt the wind get pulled from his lungs in a rush. His mouth hung open, Temuyin's blood had sprayed onto him and those around him as his body fell, Arik could taste it in his mouth, and it ran down his cheeks as it pooled on the floor. "T... Temu... yin..." He choked out, his heart racing. "Y-you..."

The threat momentarily put to rest, the woman turned to lecture the axe-wielder about killing useful informants, forgetting that Arik was even there. The Sagahl absorbed the sight before him, Temuyin's lifeless body laying at his feet, his head had landed near his hips. Arik could hardly focus as it seemed to him the air caught fire and the sun died.

Arik stood, snapping the ropes that bound him, the strength imbued to him by Temuyin's death would have been hailed as otherworldly, if anyone survived his rage. He lunged for the Roegadyn, fists enclosing around his skull, and brought the massive man to the floor, slamming his head again and again into the stonework until he heard the skull break in numerous places, and then a few more times for good measure. The pirates had briefly been too stunned to react as Arik moved, but now they tried to put him down as well.

For the second time in his life, Arik forced his hand through someones rib cage, hand enclosing around the first organ it could find inside the woman who seemed to be in charge, and ripped it clean from her body, throwing it, where it hit with a wet slap against someone else. He was deaf to their screams, and took up their weapons to use against them as they scrambled for the door. Two more fell to the axe that had taken Temuyin from him, three went down to the woman's blade, and as he fought his way to where they had put Temuyin's sword, he beat four more into total submission, crushing their skulls beneath his feet as he walked towards the remaining two, Temuyin's massive claymore in hand. "S-stop! Stop! We'll let you go!" One of them tried, but Arik couldn't hear him, or rather he didn't want to hear him.

He pierced that one's chest with the sword, shrugging the body off as he closed on the last one, a woman, too small to have taken part in the beating, but he remembered her shrill voice, calling both Xaela all manner of horrible names. He knelt close to her, she was crying, too terrified to even try to open the door that was right behind her. "I-I-I'm sorry!" She sobbed, "I k-knew-- I knew you couldn't b-be Imperials! B-b-but they wou-wouldn't listen to a greenhorn like me!"

Arik's green eyes narrowed, "I don't care." He said, but decided to kill her mercifully, slitting her throat with a dagger he had picked up at some point. She gargled her own blood, clawing at him as he stood up, and he thought it was a beautiful sound, one that Temuyin would have appreciated.

He felt cold, limping back towards Temuyin's corpse. "Temuyin..." He said to the corpse, dropping to his knees in front of the decapitated head. "You... you promised you wouldn't... get hurt... Temuyin..." He rubbed at his eyes, smearing the blood on his hands and face, mixing it with the tears that streamed down his cheeks. "You promised me we were going to g-get married... you said you'd be careful..." He reached down to pick the head of his mate up, holding it tightly, "Y-you promised me..." He choked on his words.

Outside of his nightmare, he had been mumbling in his sleep and shuffling a lot, though not in any words that Gata'a would understand but the miqo'te had woken up nonetheless. "Arik?" He tried to shake the Xaela awake, but Arik was too deeply entrenched in his nightmare to react, his arms wrapped tightly around Gata'a, as they often were, but it almost seemed desperate. "Arik wake up." He tried again, squirming in Arik's clinging hug so he could loop his arms around the Xaela's scaly neck.

Gata'a's fingers brushing over the tattoo on the back of his neck seemed to work, and with a gasp, Arik was upright, the miqo'te landing in his lap, clutched to his chest. He sucked wind, short of breath and terrified, but he could feel the soft tail of the miqo'te against his shin, and the sound of a low, concerned purr emanating from the miqo'te reminded him he wasn't in a shack in the middle of the La Noscean nowhere, clinging onto the lifeless head of his mate. He was safe, and warm, and Gata'a was alive and clearly worried. "N-Nhaama's scales." He exhaled, unable to fight back the tears that came in reality now, as much as he didn't want Gata'a to see him in such a state, it was worthless to try and hide it now.

"Are you alright?" Gata'a asked, nuzzling up against him, soft ears flattening sideways, brushing against Arik's scales. "You were mumbling-- uh--" Gata'a looked up from his snuggling, only for one of Arik's tears to drip from the scaled chin onto his cheek. "A-Arik--"

"I'm okay." Arik mumbled, but he didn't sound okay. "It was... j-just a nightmare..." He seemed to be trying to convince himself more than Gata'a that he was alright, but there was an evident struggle, his eyes shut tightly, clinging to Gata'a like his life depended on it, and in that moment it certainly did. Gata'a shifted, pushing against him until he allowed himself to be forced onto his back, the miqo'te shuffling on top of him until he was in a better position to kiss each of Arik's cheeks, before settling, and pulling one of Arik's hands into his, the other sliding up to the Xaela's tattooed neck, gently rubbing the scales. Arik's free hand buried itself in Gata'a's hair.

"I love you." Gata'a mumbled, shifting a bit so he could look up at the Sagahl's face, Arik hadn't stopped crying, but he had at least opened his eyes, "You... you don't have to tell me what the nightmare was about..." He added.

Arik managed to force something of a half-smile. "I love you too, Gata'a... I'm sorry you had to witness that..." Gata'a shook his head, muttering that it wasn't a big deal. "... even so, you don't need those sorts of worries in my regard..." Arik pulled his hand free of Gata'a's hair to scrub it over his face, almost expecting it to come back bloody, but there was only a few stray smears of the kohl eye makeup he wore. "S-stars above..." He whimpered, prompting Gata'a to nuzzle him again, the purring a bit louder now, the miqo'te trying to calm his frayed nerves, and it was working, gradually.

They didn't speak much more, Arik's voice threatened to crack and turn to sobs when he did speak, so instead he just held onto the miqo'te, who mumbled loving proclamations until they both fell asleep again, and fortunately no further nightmares came to interrupt Arik's sleep.


End file.
